THE PRAGMATISTS by Trap Door Theatre to Tour New Jersey
Zeljko Djukic directs THE PRAGMATISTS at Jersey City Theater Center's Nimbus Arts Center.
Trap Door Theatre will tour its adaptation of Stanislaw Witkiewicz's dark and shockingly absurd chamber piece, The Pragmatists. Directed by guest director Zeljko Djukic, The Pragmatists is set to perform in New Jersey at the Nimbus Arts Center at 7:30PM on June 13th, 2026. The cast includes Venice Averyheart, David Lovejoy, Hannah Silverman, Keith Surney, Kevin Webb, James Wheeler, and Nicole Wiesner.
Life “is a tale / Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, / Signifying nothing.” But what about death?
In a setting that is at the same time a torture chamber, a chamber of the heart, and a chamber for a virtuoso recital, two former friends struggle for domination in an existential conflict. They share the same dilemmas, the same collapsing world, the same despair; they are “pragmatists” because instead of facing the ultimate mystery of existence, they attempt to find pain-killing evasions, which dooms them to live the past over again while experiencing the future in advance. After his previous directing triumphs of First Ladies and Judith: A Parting from the Body, TUTA founding Artistic Director Zeljko Djukic returns from Serbia to Trap Door to direct Witkiewicz's first ever published piece.
The touring production team includes Kasia Olechno (Stage Manager), Natasha Djukic (Scenic Designer), David Goodman-Edberg (Lighting Technician), Natasha Djukic (Costume Designer), Natasha Bogojevic (Music Composer), Danny Rockett (Sound Designer), Merje Veski (Prop Designer/Master Carpenter), Emily Nichelson (Sewing Assistant), Miguel Long (Movement Consultant), Milan Pribisic (Dramaturg), and Michal Janicki (Graphic Designer).
Cast (in alphabetical order): Venice Averyheart (Mamalia), David Lovejoy (Rebis), Hannah Silverman (Gendarme 2), Keith Surney (Von Telek), Kevin Webb (Plasfodor), James Wheeler (Gendarme 1), and Nicole Wiesner (Mummy).
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